You cant legally (edit: in the USA, at least) shoot at drones even if they are tresspassing.
Well, technically they wouldn’t even be tresspassing since FAA owns all airspace, they’d be inside FAA airspace.
Shooting down a drone is treated the same as shooting down a manned aircraft, a felony. (not that they would actually enforce it, but its technically on the books)
Signal jammers are also illegal (again, not that someone would enforce it, but its on the books)
What would likely happens is:
If a rich person shoot down a non-rich person’s drone, the drone operator gets punished for “reckless drone flight” slap a huge fine if first offence, potentially jail time for future offences. The illegal act of shooting down a drone would not be enforced.
If a rich person flew a drone to harass a non-rich person, and the non-rich person shoots it down, boom, felony conviction for the person shooting down the drone, zero punishment for the drone operator.
Then laws don’t apply and you get kidnapped and put into Squid Game.
/jk lolol but like as far as I know, there’s no national laws that cover airspace over internatinal waters, and international laws generally prohibit countries from controlling air space over internstional waters, so it’d just be a civil dispute between 2 civillians and the person who has their property damaged probably have to sue in the assailant’s home country to have any chance of getting a payout.
Seems these systems don’t need to shoot. It has interceptor drones. These can fly into the spy drone, so the rich guy can just claim it was a mid-air collision and offer to pay back the owner if they just identify themselves.
According to Article L. 6211-3 of the Transportation Code, airspace does not belong to the landowner. Therefore, a drone can fly over your property as long as it does not infringe on your property rights.
The Penal Code, Article 322-1, specifies that destroying a drone is equivalent to damaging someone else’s property, punishable by up to two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.
If the drone flight reaches an intensity that the owner of a property considers a nuisance, this justifies a shooting. This is also how the Riesa District Court saw it, which on 24. April 2019 (file number: 9 Cs 926 Js 3044/19). The facts: A drone flew over a property and followed the movements of a woman and her daughter. The woman’s daughter felt threatened by the drone.
This flew around at a height of 5 to 15 meters above the two women. The woman’s husband first called out to the drone to leave. He also signaled this by clear hand signals. Since the pilot did not steer the drone away from the property, the defendant shot at the drone with an air rifle.
After the drone was shot down, it fell from the sky and was completely destroyed. There was a damage of 1,500 euros. The owner of the drone filed a criminal complaint for property damage in accordance with § 303c of the Criminal Code.However: According to § 228 BGB, the man was allowed to shoot the drone. He acted in a state of emergency and averted imminent damage from his family. There was a threat of further images.
You can’t shoot down a drone, even if it is flying over your house or land, not even if you are really unhappy with it being there. There are a number of reasons for this. If you fire a gun at a drone, even over your property, there is a chance that you might miss and hit something or someone that you didn’t intend to. If you hit your target, there is a chance that the drone might just drop from the sky and hit something or someone that you didn’t intend it to. Both of these possibilities carry particularly disastrous consequences and somewhat pale beside the legal fact that you could be charged with endangering an aircraft (the same as if you shot at an aeroplane) and face a prison sentence.
According to legal opinions, it is even permissible to catch a drone in mid-air if it is flying over one’s own property. This can be done with a net, a rope or a throwing object, as long as no one is endangered and no one’s property is compromised. However, it is forbidden to shoot down the drone with a firearm, crossbow or arrow.
Like with all emerging technologies let’s wait for jurisprudence on those… though in europe we generally frown upon anything firearms I guess there will be some interesting evolutions with drones.
As platforms they open too many possibilities and a rather constraining framework is already preventing their operation unless you have a license… which could become more of an access barrier if abuses become more prevalent.
Anecdotally I have seen first hand in 2 occasions unlicensed operators getting caught and largely fined; which was in the end more expensive that having the little drone shot.
Anyway having references that broadly seem to offer protection to drone operators isn’t necessarily a good news even where gun maniacs aren’t plentiful.
The thing is though, if a drone is spying on you the police have to do something about it. And if they can’t or won’t then you document everything and when they show up saying you did something, you tell them “so you found the guy who’s been stalking me via drone?” /S for obvious reasons, but these laws are going to have to change sooner rather than later because there’s a lot going on that technically isn’t legal with drones but can’t be prosecuted by the legal system because of this law.
Add that to the military airspace drones keep violating (not under FAA jurisdiction) and eventually this is going to be a problem that the government can’t ignore.
Same thing, you’re destroying an aircraft in flight, a felony.
You could just get your own cheap drone and “Oopsie” accidentally hit them. Then you could pull an uno reverse and claim they hit your first. FAA would not touch this and its a “civil matter”
You cant legally (edit: in the USA, at least) shoot at drones even if they are tresspassing.
Well, technically they wouldn’t even be tresspassing since FAA owns all airspace, they’d be inside FAA airspace.
Shooting down a drone is treated the same as shooting down a manned aircraft, a felony. (not that they would actually enforce it, but its technically on the books)
Signal jammers are also illegal (again, not that someone would enforce it, but its on the books)
What would likely happens is:
If a rich person shoot down a non-rich person’s drone, the drone operator gets punished for “reckless drone flight” slap a huge fine if first offence, potentially jail time for future offences. The illegal act of shooting down a drone would not be enforced.
If a rich person flew a drone to harass a non-rich person, and the non-rich person shoots it down, boom, felony conviction for the person shooting down the drone, zero punishment for the drone operator.
This is how drone issues would be resolved
is there a particular reason the air above your lawn is the faa’s? would it still be the faas if there was mosquito netting above it?
edit: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2014/11/18/the-federal-government-thinks-your-backyard-is-national-airspace-and-toys-are-subject-to-faa-regulations/
The particular reason is “government loves doing government things” 🤷♂️
If people had wings, I’m sure the FAA would regulate human flight too.
What about international waters 3+ miles off the coast?
Then laws don’t apply and you get kidnapped and put into Squid Game.
/jk lolol but like as far as I know, there’s no national laws that cover airspace over internatinal waters, and international laws generally prohibit countries from controlling air space over internstional waters, so it’d just be a civil dispute between 2 civillians and the person who has their property damaged probably have to sue in the assailant’s home country to have any chance of getting a payout.
If you own a yacht, you are already rich enough to be above the law.
Seems these systems don’t need to shoot. It has interceptor drones. These can fly into the spy drone, so the rich guy can just claim it was a mid-air collision and offer to pay back the owner if they just identify themselves.
Which jurisdiction?
Interesting I dig up a bit for Europe :
France
Germany
UK
Switzerland
Thanks for the research!
The UK one seems like a good general argument against hunting ;)
Like with all emerging technologies let’s wait for jurisprudence on those… though in europe we generally frown upon anything firearms I guess there will be some interesting evolutions with drones.
As platforms they open too many possibilities and a rather constraining framework is already preventing their operation unless you have a license… which could become more of an access barrier if abuses become more prevalent.
Anecdotally I have seen first hand in 2 occasions unlicensed operators getting caught and largely fined; which was in the end more expensive that having the little drone shot.
Anyway having references that broadly seem to offer protection to drone operators isn’t necessarily a good news even where gun maniacs aren’t plentiful.
Interesting research, thanks.
USA, sorry my American-centrism was kicking in, my bad 😉
The thing is though, if a drone is spying on you the police have to do something about it. And if they can’t or won’t then you document everything and when they show up saying you did something, you tell them “so you found the guy who’s been stalking me via drone?” /S for obvious reasons, but these laws are going to have to change sooner rather than later because there’s a lot going on that technically isn’t legal with drones but can’t be prosecuted by the legal system because of this law.
Add that to the military airspace drones keep violating (not under FAA jurisdiction) and eventually this is going to be a problem that the government can’t ignore.
What if instead of shooting them, I hit them with a really long stick? Or throw a rock or a spear?
Same thing, you’re destroying an aircraft in flight, a felony.
You could just get your own cheap drone and “Oopsie” accidentally hit them. Then you could pull an uno reverse and claim they hit your first. FAA would not touch this and its a “civil matter”
All that doesn’t matter in international waters.